<<

      

     

 #( $   ""%%$)    $*   %+ %$&&(  .  $. #

 ( ,*%""* %$($ '+ ( (*"/(%#* (* )*

 )-%(! )( )*( ** "(%+$* %$ ( ,) 



                                                    In 1876 Jean-François Raffaëlli embarked upon a series of JEAN FRANÇOIS RAFFAELLI French 1850-1924 determinedly ‘realist’ . These brought him to the Ferdinand du Puigaudeau was born in Nantes, then the main city particularly Guillaume Vogels, Jan Toorop and James Ensor. L’arrêt de l’omnibus, attention of the Naturalist writers Zola, Huysmans and Duranty, of Britanny, and after travelling to Italy and Tunisia to hone his At about this time he also met the realistic painter and sculptor Signed Painted circa 1890 Oil on panel 12.25 x 18.25 in / 31 x 46 cm who in turn introduced him to the Impressionists who also met at Provenance: artistic skills he returned there. In 1886 he met the two most Constantin Meunier, and it is perhaps this artist’s work that Private collection, Aix-en-Provence; Private collection, Paris the Café Guerbois. He was taken under the wing of Edgar important artists to settle in the region, and Émile Puigaudeau’s most closely resembles. Degas, who invited Raffaëlli to participate in the Impressionist successful one-man show in 1884 proved a consolation. The Bernard, and continued working alongside them throughout the Nonetheless Britanny remained central to Puigaudeau’s career. exhibitions of 1880 and 1881, an action that bitterly divided the writer of ‘À rebours’, J K Huysmans, wrote of him as “un Millet dawn of the School of Pont-Aven which ‘arrived’ two years later. Apart from a productive stay in Venice in 1904, and living briefly group. Monet was worried Raffaëlli would dominate the 1880 Parisien”. Subsequently, the catalogue to the Metropolitan While the two masters continually pushed the boundaries, at Batz-sur-Mer, his native region provided most of his subject- exhibition with his outsized display of 37 works and in protest Museum New York notes of a Raffaëlli in its collection: “The eventually laying the foundation stones of , matter. He painted scenes from the daily lives of the Breton chose not to exhibit. After the 1881 exhibition Monet returned sensitive handling in the finished pictures and their grayish Puigaudeau painted in a resolutely more traditional manner. In people, their festivals and ancient ceremonies, and the triumphs and Raffaëlli was the one to be excluded. Nonetheless, a hugely tonality brightened with touches of colour anticipate Utrillo.” 1889, during a trip to Belgium, he befriended the Group of XX, and tragedies of their hard day-to-day existence.

Above: FERDINAND DU PUIGAUDEAU French 1864-1930 Fête à Pont-Aven Signed ALBERT LEBOURG Painted circa 1900 French 1849-1928 Oil on canvas La côte Sainte-Catherine 13 x 16.25 in / 33 x 41 cm à Rouen Signed Provenance: Painted in 1918 Kaplan Gallery, London Oil on canvas 19.75 x 29 in / 50 x 73.5 cm

Provenance Left: Private Collection, GASTON PRUNIER French 1863-1927 This work will be included Brouillard sur la Tamise in the forthcoming Albert Signed Lebourg Catalogue critique Painted in 1933 being prepared by Oil on canvas Rodolphe Walter of the 19.75 x 25.5 in / 50 x 65 cm Wildenstein Institute Spanish 1881-1973 Le Peintre Signed Painted in 1967 Oil on canvas 36.25 x 28 in / 92 x 71 cm

Provenance: Galeria Gaspar, Barcelona; Thence by descent to the present owners

Literature: Christian Zervos, ‘Pablo Picasso: oeuvres de 1965 a 1967’, vol 25, Paris, 1972, no 358, illustrated; The Picasso Project, ‘Picasso’s Paintings, Watercolours, and Sculpture, The Sixties II, 1964-67’, San Francisco, 2002

PABLO PICASSO Spanish 1881-1973 Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe Signed & dated 1961 Pencil on paper 10.75 x 16.5 in / 27 x 42 cm

Provenance: Galleria del Millione, Milan; Acquired from the above in 1963 Literature: Christian Zervos, ‘Pablo Picasso: oeuvres de 1961 a 1962’, vol. 20, Paris, 1968, no. 77, illustrated

Pablo Picasso was unarguably the most important artist of the Over the course of a few years (1959-1962) Picasso was 20th Century. He redefined in a manner unlike any other besotted by the theme of ‘Déjeuner sur l’herbe’, as he had been artist and his career ploughed its own path through the many with Velasquez’s ‘Las Meninas’ too. The 1863 painting by Manet Perhaps more than any other artist, Picasso’s late oeuvre is held and high purple collar. Above all it is the inventive composition different movements that appeared throughout his long career. was to be hugely influential to a number of 20th Century artists in high esteem by critics and collectors. As with all walks of life that is staggering: the profile is made up of a single brushstroke Picasso’s artistic journey is legendary and stretched from his since it played with the ideas of societal hierarchy, sexuality and the 1960s was a decade of transformation, when popular artists that sweeps down the centre of the canvas creating a balance to childhood as the son of a mediocre artist in a small village near the anti-establishment sentiment of the time. Yet for Picasso the looked to a new future: visual art was now a mixture of the thick swirls of hair to the right of the pose. Each part of the Barcelona to the vast wealth of the 1960s in the Cap d’Antibes choice of ‘Déjeuner’ to reinterpret was a challenge of performance, design, fashion and (importantly) hype. Yet painting is innovative though carefully structured to create a on the French Riviera. composition more than a ‘right-on’ social agenda. In this study, amongst this maelstrom of artistic invention Picasso looked to painting which, as with everything involving this artist, could The artistic, philosophical and cultural changes that took place in not seen on the market since 1963, Picasso shows the group in the and notably to the glorious age of 17th Century never be plain. the first half of the 20th Century were vital to Picasso flourishing. a flat line without any shading or nuanced modelling of Spain and Holland. Picasso wanted his legacy to run in the same Perhaps the best person to judge his late work, his biographer Perhaps in any other generation his views and methods would form. The composition is an interplay of several Picasso tricks, vein as that of Rembrandt and his hero Velasquez. John Richardson, summed up his late period perfectly: “a have been too coarse, too different and too shocking to be taken such as the depiction of the subject on the right of the work – Never seen on the market since it was painted in 1967, ‘Le phenomenal finale to a phenomenal oeuvre”. A similar oil to ‘Le seriously. Paris in 1900 was a place and time when all artists otherwise faceless except the dark pencil that leaves a clear Peintre’ is a tour de force of Picasso’s late work. Here the artist is Peintre’ which shares the same title was sold in 2007 for $3.5m chose to revolt against the Classical and without Picasso the profile. This piece is amongst the rarest seen on the market since asking the audience to consider his oeuvre as a worthy extension and another sold at Christie’s this February for £3.5m. The upheaval would not have had its hero. It needed his overbearing it is a fully finished work, unfettered by indecision and re-working to the vast legacy of the old masters. We see the artist in a semi- highest price paid at auction for a work from this series was the ego to captain the revolution. of composition. abstract pose with a 17th century costume, coiffeur, moustache $6.5m paid for another 1967 canvas in 2007. HANS RICHTER German 1888-1976 Zeppelin Signed Painted in 1916 Oil on board 23 x 20 in / 58.5 x 51 cm

Provenance: The Hans Richter Estate

The great deflater of German greatness, George Grosz wrote: In the introduction to his book ‘Über Alles die Liebe’ (Love Above “My drawings expressed my despair, hate and disillusionment.” All), published in Berlin in 1930, Grosz refers to the characters in In the work above, Grosz depicts a smartly dressed but vacuous the book who are obviously very similar to those depicted in this couple walking down the street. The woman sports a large pink watercolour: hat and a diminutive dog wearing an over-sized blue bow; the “The title shows that the subject here is interpersonal relations. fleshy-faced man is carried by stick-thin legs. To the right is a Fine, but one should not expect that my drawings would sharply-dressed man wearing a smug, self-satisfied grin. The resemble illustrations of usual lovers’ idyll. Realist that I am, I sum Hans Richter is famous today as one of the hugely influential the Cubo-Futurists proved a strong influence, while Richter’s artist first titled the watercolor ‘Jugendzeit’, or youth, a cynical my pen and brush primarily for taking down what I see and Group, and as an avant-garde film-maker who claimed ‘Violoncello’ of 1914 and his ‘Orchestra’ of the following year title as the figures’ youthful days have obviously long passed. observe, and that is generally unromantic, sober, and not very (erroneously) to have made the first ever abstract film. ‘Zeppelin’, have all the hallmarks of the dynamic typical of In 1931, Grosz retitled the work ‘Quallen’, or jellyfish, to dreamy…hurrah for progress, human relations in general and above, is one of the very finest of his early pre-Dada works and compositions by in 1912-1913. emphasize the unfocused insipidness of the figures. reproduction in particular.” shows an extraordinary talent. Richter studied in Berlin in 1908 Richter was wounded during World War I and arrived in and in Weimar in 1909, but his first exposure to modern art only Switzerland in 1916, where he joined the initial Dada group, GEORGE GROSZ German 1893-1957 came in 1912 when he visited exhibitions by ‘’ attracted to them not least on account of their anti-military Strassenszene, Berlin group. At the initial Autumn Salon (Herbstsalon) in 1913, he stance. By 1917 Richter was still producing works of an Signed and inscribed ‘Quallen’ Inscribed ‘Jugendzeit’ on the reverse Executed in 1925 Watercolour on paper 20 x 30 in / 50.5 x 76.5 cm distributed the Futurist Manifesto published by Marinetti who he Expressionist nature, notably his ‘Visionary portraits’, but during had met in Berlin that year. In his very early works Cézanne and his Zurich period, together with Viking Eggeling, he started to Provenance: The artist; Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin; , explore the extension of painting in Chicago, ‘The 11th International Exhibition: Water Colors, Pastels, terms of time and the development of Drawings, Monotypes, and Miniatures’, 1931, no 104; Oscar F. Mayer, Chicago, acquired from the above; By descent abstract images in space. By 1917, Exhibited: Berlin, Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, ‘George Grosz’, 1926, no 6 he had already embarked on a series This watercolour will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of of black and white abstract works on paper by George Grosz, by Ralph Jentsch compositions along the lines of the

Zurich Dadaists, culminating in his FERNAND LÉGER ‘Dada Orchestra’ of 1918. French 1881-1955 Elément de Fauteuil Inscribed ‘elément de fauteuil’ Executed circa 1931 ALEXANDER CHARLES ROBINSON Pen and India ink on paper 14.5 x 12.25 in / 37 x 31 cm American 1867-1952 Lago Maggiore Provenance: Signed & dated 1924 Lucien Lefebvre-Foinet, Paris Oil on canvas Literature: 23.5 x 36.25 in / Jean Cassou and Jean Leymarie, ‘Fernand Léger Drawings and 60 x 92 cm Gouaches’, 1973, no. 166, illustrated p. 21 French 1840-1916 Emile Hennequin wrote in Revue Artistique et Litteraire, on 4th ODILON REDON La Coupe du Devenir (L'Enfant a la coupe) French 1840-1916 March, 1882 that: “From now on M. Odilon Redon should be Executed circa 1894 Oil on canvas laid down on board Soucis, bleuets et roses dans 19.25 x 13.75 in / 49 x 35 cm considered one of our masters…an outstanding master who, un vase blanc - Flowers in a White Vase aside from Goya, has neither ancestor nor follower: Somewhere Provenance: Signed Oil on board Rene Philipon, Paris; M. Huc, Paris on the boundary between reality and fantasy he has conquered a 20.75 x 16.25 in / 52.5 x 41.5 cm Baron Robert de Domecy, France (acquired circa 1910); desolate domain which he has peopled with formidable Private collection (by descent from the above and sold: Sotheby’s New phantoms, monsters, monads (and) composite beings …” Provenance: York, 1993, lot 22; Private collection, acquired at the above sale; Etienne Bignou, Paris; Sotheby’s New York, 2007, lot 16; D.W.T. Cargill, Lanark; Private collection, acquired at the above sale Odilon Redon was at the forefront of , the esoteric The Lefevre Gallery, London; Exhibited: movement in arising in the late 1880s as a rejection of Mrs Louis Dreyfus; Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago; Amsterdam, The Van Gogh Hirschl & Adler, New York; Museum; London, Royal Academy of Arts, ‘Odilon Redon, Prince of Realism and Naturalism. Symbolists asserted that by examining Roland, Browse & Delbanco, Dreams, 1840-1916’, 1994-95, no 118; dreams and mythology, mysticism and the depths of their London; Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, ‘Darwin: Art and the Search for N. Gutmann, 1967; Origins’, Feb 5 – May 3, 2009 imaginations they would arrive at a deeper level of truth. Redon Galerie de l’Elysee, Paris; Literature: said that his aim was to put "the logic of the visible at the service Alice Tully, New York, c1973; Alec Wildenstein, ‘Odilon Redon, Catalogue Raisonné, études et grandes Christie's New York, 9th décorations’, vol. IV, Paris, 1998, no 2569, illustrated p 242; of the invisible.” Thus they did not adhere to illusionistic November 1994, Lot 27; Pamela Kort and Max Hollein, ‘Darwin: Art and the Search for Origins’ descriptions of nature in the way that the Romantics and Realists Private collection, USA (Cologne: Wienand Verlag GmbH and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfut, 2009), had before them, nor did they see the world purely in terms of cat no 114, illus p 161 Exhibited: colour and light as the Impressionists did. Rather, by O.R., Paris, 1926, no. 7, p. 9; O.R., Glasgow, 1926, no. 1; working within the domain of the mystical, the The Lefevre Gallery, ‘XIXth primordial, the mythological and the spiritual, the art of Century French Masters’, 1950, no 16; the Symbolists was intended to express Nature’s true Acquavella Galleries, ‘Odilon underlying ideals. They did not concede that their Redon’, 1970, no 14, repr. Wildenstein, New York, approach was any less of a truthful and honest way to ‘Masterpieces in Bloom’, depict the natural world, which they ultimately viewed 1973, no 53; Hirschl & Adler, as mysterious and ill defined. ‘Retrospective of a Gallery’, 1973, no 77, repr. ‘La coupe du devenir’ was painted in about 1894, when Literature: Redon was still struggling for acceptance within the Alec Wildenstein, ‘Odilon Redon: Catalogue Parisian art world. While often misunderstood and Raisonné de l’Oeuvre Peint et scorned by his contemporaries, the artist was to Dessiné’, Vol III, Fleurs et become a master to future generations of painters, paysages (Paris: Wildenstein Institute, including the Belgian group, Les XX and the Nabis in 1996), cat no 1579, France. ‘La coupe du devenir‘ depicts a young boy, illus in black and white, p 147 probably the artist’s son Ari Redon, as the personification of unspoiled youth and innocence. Surrounded by bursts of varying shades of purple and yellow, he gazes in wonderment into a luminous chalice Redon began his series of flower paintings, both in oil and pastel, vase toward the bottom of the composition, floating against a filled with vices. The large purple shadow that falls after 1900, when he was in his sixties. His interest in colour was murky, brownish hued background, the flowers emerge upward between the figure and the cup unifies the elements of revived by the young Nabis and neo-Impressionist painters, and and outward with an explosive radiance, emanating the very the composition and also provides a barrier between it came to be the chief focus of these still lives. Meanwhile, sensuality which Redon strove to express. the boy and his temptations. Redon noted his art depended upon “a gift of delicious sensuality, which can with a little of the most simple liquid This sensuality is further evoked by the fluidity with which he Redon’s career followed an atypical trajectory which led substance reconstitute or amplify life, leave its imprint on a handles the paint; Redon was able to achieve a similar lush and him from his early, colourless, monochromatic years to surface, from which will emerge a human presence, the supreme flowing sensibility with oil paints as he did when working in the later production of colourful oils and pastels, such irradiation of the spirit.” pastels. Here the paint gracefully caresses the surface of the as the on the facing page – ‘Soucis, bleuets et panel and shimmers with a rich luster, imbuing his flowers with a roses dans un vase blanc’. Redon’s early ‘noirs’ ‘Soucis, bleuets et roses dans un vase blanc’ is a wonderful visceral sense of vitality and demonstrating both the depicted “a world of fear, mysterious forces, and example of Redon’s enchanting floral arrangements in which he extraordinary technique and the artistic sensitivity of this rare and strange visions.”, but the portrayal of the invisible by presents a bouquet of flowers positioned asymmetrically in an unparalleled artist. means of the visible is what links these earlier demonic indeterminate, vacuous space. From the top of the simple white pieces with the late still lives, which still keep the magic vase bursts forth a veritable symphony of radiant flowers touch but in a different way. “They are evocations of a comprised of bright orange, vermilion and vibrant blue, tempered miraculous beauty beyond realistic rendering.” with the regularity of green leaves throughout. By placing the GUSTAVE LOISEAU French 1865-1935 Vue de Saint-Cyr-du-Vaudreuil Signed Painted circa 1925 Oil on canvas 19.75 x 23.5 in / 50 x 60 cm

Provenance: Private Collection, France

Gustave Loiseau developed his of painting when his family Simliar to Loiseau in much of his early oeuvre, Henri Lebasque Louis Valtat’s oeuvre is astonishing in its breadth and quality, from LOUIS VALTAT French 1869-1952 moved to Pontoise in 1884, a village of significant importance as was besotted with nature and his family. His two children, Marthe the heavily worked paintings of the 1890s to the flamboyant Dans le jardin Cézanne and Pissarro had painted the village and its environs and Nono, feature prominently in his painting. This delightful 1920s still-lifes. From an important period in Valtat’s career, ‘Dans Signed Painted in 1901 Oil on canvas 9.5 x 13 in / 24 x 33 cm extensively. Loiseau’s early work, from 1890-1900 is absolutely in depiction of the view from a window is almost certainly the view le jardin’ is impulsive and sketchy in its execution but completely Provenance: keeping with his main inspiration – the Impressionist works of from his where he spent so much of his life. vivid in its portrayal of a sweet scene presumably painted ‘en Given to Doctor Sauze; Private Collection, France Literature: Pissarro and Monet - and he exhibited with the Impressionists in The image is swiftly and spontaneously painted but the technique plein air’. Louis Valtat’s paintings command over $1m at auction J. Valtat, ‘Louis Valtat catalogue de l’oeuvre peint, 1869-1952’, the 5th exhibition in 1891. Yet he grew into an artist with a keen he employs is exceptional, particularly in showing the and his earlier, pre-1905 examples are especially sought after. Volume I, Neuchatel, 1977, no 312, reproduced p 35 eye for and a very distinct handling of the paint surface. In his transparency of the curtain to the right. Henri Lebasque’s market

1920s paintings we see a thick, cross-hatched style which is very strong at present: in the past decade 10 works have sold GEORGES D’ESPAGNAT enables Loiseau to apply paint in great thick strokes, creating the at auction for more than $500,000 and in 2011 a spectacular French 1870-1950 Le Lavandou most astonishing texture and depth of colour. large canvas made over $1m. Signed Painted circa 1899-1905 Oil on canvas HENRI LEBASQUE 29 x 36.5 in / French 1865-1937 73.5 x 92.5 cm Le jardin vu de la fenêtre Signed Provenance: Painted circa 1906 Durand-Ruel, Paris & New York; Oil on board Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo 23 x 29.5 in / (a gift from the above by 100 58.5 x 75 cm museum members), 1906; Sale: Sotheby’s New York, Literature: 8th November 2006, lot 239; Denise Bazetoux, Richard Green, London; ‘Henri Lebasque, Private Collection, Monaco catalogue raisonné’, 2008, Vol I, no 1144, Exhibited: illustrated Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, ‘Exhibition of One Hundred Paintings by the Impressionists from the Collection of Durand- Ruel & Sons, Paris’, 1905, no 24

Literature: The Toledo Museum of Art, ‘European Paintings’, Toledo, 1976, no 279, illustrated p 58 Left: MARIE-FRANÇOIS FIRMIN-GIRARD French 1838-1921 Après le bal Signed & dated 1869 Oil on canvas 9.5 x 13.5 in / 24 x 34 cm

Below : JULES CYRILLE CAVÉ French 1859-1940 Autoportrait Signed & dated 1893 Oil on canvas 10.5 x 7.75 in / 27 x 19.5 cm

At the age of 16, Marie-François Firmin-Girard enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, initially studying under the Swiss painter Charles Gleyre, and then under Jean-Léon Gérôme (see below), the academic master of orientalism and anecdotal history paintings. By the late 1870s, when Jules Cavé was pursuing his studies, William Bouguereau held equal status as an academic master, and in fact that artist’s distinctive softness of texture (as opposed to the harder-edged detail of Gérôme) can be seen in the gentle and refined self-portrait illustrated right.

‘Somewhere the sun is shining’ is a spectacular work from Sir SIR ALFRED MUNNINGS English 1878-1959 Alfred Munnings’ early years, painted in Norfolk in 1911. In ‘An Somewhere the sun is shining Artist’s Life’ he wrote how he was in the garden of The Bush pub Signed Painted circa 1911 Oil on canvas 25 x 30 in / 64 x 76.5 cm in Costessey: “Quite by chance, just as I was starting to work, two strolling singers turned up. She was singing the popular Provenance: sale: Sotheby's, London, 13 May 1987, lot 75; song of the day, ‘Somewhere The Sun Is Shining’. There was a Richard Green, London; soothing, idle holiday atmosphere about its garden.” Private collection, London (purchased from the above circa 1988) Munnings’ popular reputation is still coloured by the speech he Exhibited: Left: London, Leicester Galleries, ‘Pictures of Horses, Hunting and Country Life JEAN-LEON GEROME gave in 1949, retiring as President of the Royal Academy, that by A J Munnings’, 1913, no.18; French 1824-1904 was broadcast to millions by BBC radio. A vitriolic attack on Norwich, Castle Museum, ‘Loan Collection of Pictures Illustrating the work Les Deux Augures of A J Munnings RA’, 1928, no.84; Signed & dated 1861 modern art and specifically the influence of Cézanne, Matisse London, Royal Academy, Diploma Gallery, ‘Exhibition of Works by Sir Oil on canvas Alfred J Munnings, KCVO, PPRA’, 1956, no.15; 25.75 x 19.75 in / 65.5 x 50 cm and Picasso, Munnings was himself clearly under the influence of London, Sotheby's, ‘An English Idyll, A Loan Exhibition of Works by Sir alcohol. A film entitled ‘Summer in February’, about Munnings’ Alfred Munnings’, 2001, no.28 bohemian years in Cornwall from 1912-14, is to be released in Literature: the UK in June this year. It is, however, unlikely to reveal much A. J. Munnings, ‘An Artist's Life’, 1950, pp.226-7 about his astonishing talents as an artist, dealing primarily with the artist’s life with his first wife, Florence, whose relationship with Gilbert Evans, a friend of the couple, led to her suicide in 1914. Right: BLANCHE HOSCHEDÉ-MONET French 1865-1947 Au bord de la mer Signed Painted circa 1905 Pastel on paper 10 x 12.5 in / 24 x 31.5 cm

Below: OCTAVE GUILLONNET French 1872-1967 Baigneuses sous les glycines Signed Painted circa 1925 Oil on canvas 32 x 26 in / 81 x 66 cm

Provenance: Private collection, London

Blanche Hoschedé-Monet, born in 1865, was the second daughter of Ernest and Alice Hoschedé, who during the late 1870s shared a house in Poissy with Claude and Camille Monet. SIR WILLIAM RUSSELL FLINT auction have all been recorded in the past decade. English 1880-1969 Camille died in 1879 and finally Claude and Alice married in As a marketable commodity, Flint’s watercolours have the Rhythm of the Ballet - Moira Shearer in ‘The Red Shoes’ 1892. Signed Painted in 1946 advantage of being both numerous and fairly even in quality; thus Oil on canvas 22.5 x 44.5 in / 57 x 113 cm Blanche started painting some time in her teens under Monet’s good examples are not too hard to find with prices easy to guidance. She was attracted to Monet’s style and subject matter, Provenance: compare. But the artist himself was notably touchy when Frost & Reed, London (ref 42139), circa 1950; and since Monet did not wish for her to study in an academy, he Private collection, USA; questioned on their quantity: “Prolific? No: the completion of a encouraged her and gave her casual instruction. Blanche began Waterhouse & Dodd, London, 1987; picture involves much thought and time. Industrious? Certainly”. Private collection, London submitting works to the Salon in 1888, but she was not Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1946; accepted that year. Seven of her paintings appeared at the Salon Flint’s attitude to art was extremely straightforward and he had Port , The Lady Lever Art Gallery, des Indépendants in 1905, where Durand-Ruel purchased one of ‘Theatrical Exhibition’, 1949, no 49 no time for academic isms: “I have always painted for fun. If it Published as a limited edition print ‘Rhythm of the Ballet’ in 1948 her works. From about 1914 Blanche ceased painting almost ceased to be fun, I would stop painting”. His work is deliberately entirely, having taken over the running of the estate at Giverny as The works of Sir William Russell Flint have the rare distinction of and single-mindedly frivolous. Flint maintained a characteristic well as looking after her step-father, and only recommenced never having been out of fashion. That is not to say they have modesty about his astonishing technical facility. As a fellow artist painting upon his death in 1926. always been the height of modishness, but their prices have recorded: “He says he would be a very poor fish if after three- always remained relatively high and they have always appealed to quarters of a century’s continual practice he hadn’t subjected his a sector of the art market. At the time of his retrospective at the chosen medium to obedience.” Flint was meticulous about his Royal Academy in 1962 (only the sixth ever to be granted to a materials: paper and colours had to be of the best quality, while living artist) prices for his works ranged from £400-£2,000 while favourite brushes were preserved for years. Painting on the his signed prints reached £100 each even though there were Scottish coast in 1929 he lost his ‘big water-colour brush’; the thousands of them available. By 1972 the record auction price next day he found it washed up on the tide and, after cleaning, it Right: for one of his watercolours was more than double that of any was returned to active service until his death 40 years later. EMILIO GRAU-SALA French 1911-1975 work by say Tissot (current record: over £5m). Even the roller- The Paddock, Paris coaster ride of the late 1980s saw only a steady rise in his prices. While Russell-Flint is justifiably most famous as a watercolourist, Signed Dated 1969 on verso Oil on canvas his much rarer oil paintings remain highly sought-after. The 19.25 x 23.5 in / 48.5 x 60 cm Today one might justifiably think that Russell-Flints are not quite painting above, of Moira Shearer depicted in three different Provenance to the current aesthetic taste. Yet that is certainly not borne out poses, is among the most important of these. It was painted in Private Collection, United Kingdom by auction results. Just four years ago a stunning by 1946, two years before the eventual release of Michael Powell Flint sold at Sotheby’s London for over £300,000 ($557,000). and Emeric Pressburger’s ‘The Red Shoes’. The New York Star Then in December 2010 an unusually large watercolour with described Shearer as "a delicate, red-haired sprite full of modesty tempera sold at the same auction rooms for £205,000 and grace, whose dancing is light, flame and spirit”, a sentiment ($320,000). Indeed, the five highest prices for his works at Russell-Flint captures perfectly in his oil painting. JEAN-FRANÇOIS RAUZIER French Born 19521 Beaux-Arts Diasec mounted C-Type print Edition of 8 58 x 98 in / 150 x 250 cm RICHARD MAUCH Austrian 1874-1921 Afternoon Coffee Signed & dated 1914 Oil on canvas 21 x 28 in / 54 x 71 cm

Provenance: Walker Bagshawe, London; Private collection, London (acquired from the above in 1988)

Born near Vienna in 1874, Richard Mauch went on to exhibit with The jewel-like painting illustrated below by Moïse Kisling is a the Secessionist exhibitions of both Munich and Vienna. His still wonderful example of the artist’s later style. Indeed, though small, life above is a relatively orthodox painting but contains elements with its lively use of colour and impasto it is among the best of of Secessionist art in the background vertical stripes, and strong his post-1918 works. Having served in both World Wars he forms. In the 1980s this work passed through the hands of emigrated to America in 1940 and settled in California, exhibiting Walker Bagshawe, one of the most stylish galleries of the time in New York, at the Whitney, and at the in who specialised in Secessionist works of art. They would often Philadelphia. Kisling returned to France in 1946 and settled again re-frame works in elaborate reproductions of Secessionist frames in the South of France, at Sanary-sur-Mer in Provence where the The above painting comes from the collection of Henri Bousquet HENRI JEAN GUILLAUME MARTIN and so this still life comes resplendent in a huge (and historically street he lived on was named after him. A retrospective of his French 1860-1943 (1865-1953), an eminent linguist, businessman, international La vallée du Lot accurate) pink and gold confection. works was organised in Paris in 1984 at the . political analyst and financier. He was also a respected historian Signed Painted circa 1920 Oil on canvas 32.75 x 35 in / 83 x 89 cm and bibliophile, with a library apparently totalling more than MOISE KISLING Provenance Polish 1891-1953 50,000 books, as well as an art collector. ‘La vallée du Lot’ is Collection Henri Bousquet, France Arbres en fleurs one of six oil paintings by Henri Martin that were in his collection. Signed Oil on canvas painting – in reference to the stunning 18 foot canvas ‘Serenity’ 6.25 x 9.5 in / 16 x 24 cm By 1920 Henri Martin had achieved an enviable position in the art which now hangs in the Musée d’Orsay. In 1897 Provenance: world. During the 1890s he had exhibited throughout Europe, at wrote that “Henri Martin and Cladel have looted us ... they now Collection Kisling, Paris many of the important exhibitions of Symbolist art, and most of pass as the inventors of ‘’.” Of course this betrays Literature: his major works had already been acquired by museums. In Signac’s own insecurity, for like many artists Martin only adopted Jean Kisling, 1905 he received the Croix de la Légion d’honneur, in 1914 he the short dashes of colour and coloured shadows of pointillism ‘Kisling 1891-1953’, text by Joseph Kessel, became a Commandeur of the order, and in 1918 he was without bothering with the finer points of chromatic theory. His Volume I, 1971, elected a member of the Institut Français. Edition Jean Kisling, Turin, interest was confined to the decorative potential of the technique, reproduced p 297 no 100 working in a broader, less systematic manner, applying paint in However, for such an established artist his critical reputation has feathery brushstrokes of fragmented colour. Having adopted the fluctuated to an unexpected degree, to the extent that he was technique from his first master, Ernest Laurent, and the great considered a ‘re-discovered’ artist in the mid-1980s, when his Italian painter, Segantini, he used it primarily to impart a work increased tenfold in price between 1986 and 1990. During shimmering, ethereal light to his subjects. This he used with as his early career Puvis de Chavannes hailed Martin as his heir and great effect in his early Symbolist works, as in the ostensibly successor, but both D S MacColl and Paul Desjardins declared more naturalistic panoramic views such as this of the valley near the use of pointillist technique as inappropriate for a monumental his home at Marquayrol, near Labastide du Vert in the Lot valley.